Wolves shot and mutilated as Italy considers bringing back a cull after more than 40 years of protecting the predator

Wolves are being illegally shot dead, mutilated and displayed outside towns and villages in Italy in a sign of growing resistance to the species’ remarkable comeback.

In the latest case of persecution, a decapitated wolf was dumped outside the medieval ridge-top village of Pitigliano in Tuscany.

It was the tenth wolf in three years to have been shot dead and left on display in the region, in a macabre protest by farmers against the damage that the carnivores do to their livestock.

The killing of the wolf was condemned as a “barbarous act” by Legambiente, a conservation organisation, but it comes amid calls for a resumption of hunting.

The wolf was declared a protected species in Italy in 1971, since when it has bounced back from a few dozen individuals to a population now estimated at 1,500 to 2,000. Wolf packs are present throughout the Apennines, the central spine of mountains that runs the length of the country, as well as in parts of the Alps.

There are an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 wild wolves in Italy.Credit:
Lionel Cironneau/AP

Farmers in some parts of the country say that attacks by wolves on their flocks are now so frequent that they are being driven out of business. “There are around 600 wolves in Tuscany and 300 pastoralists have already had to abandon the Maremma,” said Tulio Marcelli, the regional president of the Coldiretti farmers association, referring to an area of southern Tuscany. “We don’t hate wolves, we just want to save our sheep and cattle, and our livelihoods.”

In Tuscany alone, wolves had caused 1.2 million euros’ worth of damage to flocks and herds last year, he said.

A wolf management plan was discussed by government agencies this week and is due to be formally adopted next week. “In some regions, the presence of the wolf has become a danger,” said Gian Luca Galletti, the environment minister. “There are farms that are closing because of wolves.”

The government wants to expand existing programmes that strive to make co-existence between man and wolf possible, including compensation for farmers whose sheep, goats and other domestic animals are killed, and money for electric fences to keep wolves away from livestock.

Farmers also use large sheepdogs, such as the shaggy white Maremma breed, to keep wolves away from their herds and flocks. The plan also envisages introducing a limited cull, with the number of wolves to be exterminated to be no more than five per cent of the national population. If approved, it would be the first cull in 46 years, since the predator received legal protection.

Culling is fiercely opposed by environmental groups, who said that wolves were so adaptable and far-ranging that surviving animals would swiftly colonise the territories of those which were killed.

The best approach was to use electric fences and sheep dogs to thwart wolf attacks. “We have done everything possible to prevent the extinction of these animals and now people want to pick up their guns again,” said Massimo Vitturi, from the animal welfare organisation Lav. A cull would be “ethically unacceptable,” he said. “It would ruin all the progress we’ve made.”

WWF Italia said the cull would “take the country back 40 years in relation to the protection of the species.”

Capalbio is a village in the Maremma region of Tuscany, where wolves have been illegally shot dead, decapitated, and put on public display.Credit:
Alamy

A petition against the cull, organised by WWF, has been signed by nearly 200,000 people. Wolves from Italy have in the last 20 years crossed the border into France, where their range has expanded into the Massif Central and up into the Jura and Vosges mountains.

Wildlife experts point out that wolves mostly feed on wild prey such as boar and roe deer, which in Italy are in plentiful numbers, rather than on domestic animals.

Boar, roe deer and red deer have dramatically grown in numbers in recent years as a result of scrub and forest encroaching on abandoned farmland. Wild boar numbers have risen by around 400 per cent since 2000, while roe deer numbers are up 350 per cent.